Not sure if there is already a rule about this that I missed, but this is the situation. Next semester I will be put in charge of going through my universities specimen collection and cataloging everything we have, as well as upkeeping it. Can specimens with complete collection data (date, species and location) be uploaded as observations? We have a quite large collection, and I think the data could be valuable. The collection has never been properly cataloged before.
No, iNaturalist is a platform for personal observations/interactions with nature. However, if you have specimens you collected, then those are permitted.
As it so happens, a big discussion just concluded about an account that was made to do just this. The account was soft-suspended by staff (not actually suspended or deleted, but forbidden from posting any more observations).
iDigBio might be more what you need for this. Collection specimen data posted there will be added to GBIF and other databases
Yes directly posting to GBIF is better than iNat. IDigBio is shutting down soon, so I don’t think that’s a good option anymore unfortunately.
Thanks. I caught that the iDigBio website is now hosted at GBIF, but I missed the fact that it will completely stop existing as an entity in 2027
Thanks for the info! I have a little bit of experience with GBIF so I will look into that.
Simbiota is often used by universities to post specimen data. Contact places that have similar collections and ask about it.
Why so? These are scientific records and they are still useful. I now see why some specimen guys stopped posting, but I miss seeing those!
That’s why they should be uploaded to GBIF. iNat isn’t meant to be a record repository; it’s specifically about documenting its own users’ personal interactions with wild organisms. For example, I uploaded thousands of photos of my personal insect collection to inat because I was out in the field and caught them myself; but I also visit large institutional collections, and I’d never take pictures of their specimens to put on inat, because I didn’t have any encounter with them in the wild.
Official guidance from iNat is here:
https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000206052-can-i-add-herbarium-specimens-or-museum-collections-to-inaturalist-
There are a fair amount of previous threads on this question including:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/observations-of-animals-and-plants-from-scientific-collections/84426
Good luck with getting the collection in shape!
These insects are important records! It’s just that iNaturalist isn’t the best place to put them. Using one of the more strictly science-oriented sites mentioned above will help get them to the attention of a different group of scientists. (That group overlaps with researchers who use iNaturalist data, but it’s not the same.)